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THE BLACK CAULDRON
aka
TARAN AND THE MAGIC CAULDRON
Rating: 
USA. 1985.
Directors – Ted Berman & Richard Rich, Screenplay – Ted Berman, Richard Rich, Vance Gerry, Joe Hale, David Jonas, Roy Morita & Al Wilson, Based on the The Prydane Chronicles Novels by Lloyd Alexander, Producer – Joe Hale, Music – Elmer Bernstein, Production Design – John Emerson, Lisa Keene, Tia W. Kratter, Andrew Philipson, Brian Sebern & Donald Towns. Production Company – Disney/Silver Screen Partners II.
Voices:
Grant Bardsley (Taran), Susan Sherdian (Princess Eilonwy), Nigel Hawthorne (Fflewddur Fflam), John Byner (Guigi), John Hurt (The Horned King), Phil Fondacaro (Creeper), Freddie Jones (Dallben)
Plot: The idealistic young pig-keeper Taran is entrusted by his master to take the prophetic pig Hen Wen to safety. The evil Horned King is obsessed with finding the black cauldron of power and desires Hen Wen’s prophetic gift in order to do so. However Taran fails miserably in his appointed task and the Horned King captures Hen Wen. Joined by the princess Eilonwy; Ffleeddur Fflam, a bard with a liberal regard for truth; and a cheeky small creature, Guigi, Taran sets out to find the cauldron and defuse its power before the Horned King can obtain it.
The Black Cauldron was a production that was long in the works from Disney – since at least 1977. It certainly has some great things about it – the lovely airbrushed animation and dazzling light effects – but in other ways is a disappointment.
The problem is the timing of when the film was conceived. 1977 was the point when Star Wars (1977) was the biggest thing to hit sf/fantasy ever and the film seems to be stuck in an immediate post-Star Wars time warp. Even though it is based on a series of children’s sword and sorcery fantasy novels by Lloyd Alexander – The Book of Three (1964), The Black Cauldron (1965), The Castle of Llyr (1966), Taran Wanderer (1967) and The High King (1968), of which the film meshes the first two books – the film still rehashes the same elements that everyone was trying to copy immediately after Star Wars. Thus we have the boy who dreams of being a warrior and is thrown into an epic adventure, the small innocuous creature with valuable information, the plucky princess (one of the film’s more stimulating characterizations), the evil skull-faced lord who strangles his own minions, even a copycat John Williams symphonic score. Disney are not even above plundering from themselves – notably the witches from The Sword and the Stone (1963), bits of Sleeping Beauty (1959), and the foreboding forests of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
The truth though is that the cliches do not amount to a substantial enough working to make The Black Cauldron a particularly interesting film. The period 1966-1989 was largely an undistinguished wasteland for Disney animation and The Black Cauldron is one of Disney’s more forgettable ventures into feature animation. Indeed of all Disney films, The Black Cauldron is probably one that has been almost all but forgotten by the public.
Copyright Richard Scheib 1990
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